This post began when I first found out that Dolt45 didn’t attend the White House Passover Seder began by President and Mrs. Obama in 2009. In 8 years, there were 8 Passover Seders, and President Obama attended ALL of them.

First year for Dolt45, and he couldn’t be bothered to show up.

But, I was like, that’s ok, I’m sure Kushner and Ivanka were the hosts in his place.

I wake up this morning to find out that KUSHNER AND IVANKA DID NOT HOST, NOR ATTEND THE WHITE HOUSE PASSOVER SEDER.

The Jewish members of Dolt45’s family COULD NOT BE BOTHERED TO HOST THE WHITE HOUSE PASSOVER SEDER?

WHAT.THE.PHUCK!!!

Then…..

I saw a picture over at Balloon Juice, of the 2017 White House Passover Seder…and, I was like….ARE.YOU.KIDDING.ME?

Here’s the 2017 Passover Seder:

Versus the Obama Passover Seder:

The one from this year looks like they went to Costco for decorations.
Look at the CHAIRS.
Look at the table cloth- they picked it up at the Dollar Store.
Look at the table itself -are you kidding? THIS is supposed to be the White House?

Contrast this with the Obama Passover Seder. It’s quite clear that they are IN the White House. Look at that table – formal china, place settings, FLOWERS, linens.

You know, GIVING RESPECT to the occasion.

WHO is the Social Secretary for these inept clowns?

They had already All Lives Mattered the Holocaust. When called on it, they doubled down.

You know, people say that they just say outrageous stuff, to say it. And, that very well may be true, but it still doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be outraged and call them out.

So, here is where we were earlier this afternoon:
They held a White House Seder that was so pathetic and pitiful looking that they sent out to Cotsco for decorations on 30 minutes notice.
They have WHITE SUPREMACISTS working in the White House, and they always pull the ‘But Kushner and Ivanka are Jewish’ card everytime someone brings the underlying current of Anti-Semitism, and the use of White Supremacist materials….

The same Kushner and Ivanka THAT COULDN’T BE BOTHERED TO COMMENT ON THE HOLOCAUST BEING ALL LIVES MATTERED…

The same Kushner and Ivanka THAT COULDN’T BE BOTHERED TO HOST THE WHITE HOUSE PASSOVER SEDER.

That’s the background for which Spicer, trying to continue to shill the bullshyt of Dolt45 being so ‘tough’ on Syria’s Assad, said this:

Addressing Syria’s use of chemical weapons last week in an attack against a rebel-controlled region of his own country, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Syrian dictator Bashar Assad’s behavior was worse than that of Adolf Hitler, “who didn’t even sink to using chemical weapons.”

“We didn’t use chemical weapons in World War II,” Spicer said Tuesday as he criticized the Russian government for its support of Assad. “Someone who is despicable as Hitler who didn’t even sink to using chemical weapons. You have to, if you’re Russia, ask yourself, is this a country that you, and a regime that you want to align yourself with?

Wow…Hitler didn’t?
Then, I guess all the JEWS WHO DIED VIA ZYKLON B JUST IMAGINED IT!!!

When called on it, instead of admitting his ignorance and apologizing for the insult to the Jews who died in the Holocaust, we got this…

Asked to clarify his comment later in the briefing, Spicer said, “I think when you come to sarin gas, there was no — he was not using the gas on his own people the same way that Assad is doing.”

“There was not — he brought them into the Holocaust centers, I understand that,” he added.

OH MY PHUCKING GOD!!!

I didn’t think that could possibly be real. When I saw the tweet, I was like, this person has to be wrong.

HOLOCAUST CENTERS??!?!

Charles Blow:

Charles M. Blow
✔
@CharlesMBlow

So, if concentration camps were just “Holocaust centers,” I guess slave ships were just transatlantic ferries… #SpicerFacts

The Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect is demanding that Spicer be fired immediately. “On Passover no less, Sean Spicer has engaged in Holocaust denial, the most offensive form of fake news imaginable by denying Hitler gassed millions of Jews to death,” the Executive Director of the center said.

Yesterday, April 11th, was Spelman College’s Founder’s Day. On April 11th, 1881, the beginnings of what has become a shining star of Black America saw its inception. And I, for one, am thankful that the founders saw fit to create this institution of higher learning that has honestly done
almost as much for me as my own alma mater, Morehouse College.

Wrote a song about it; like to hear it, hear it go.

………………………………..

Hear this, and hear this good: Spelman College is just different. The
first time I ventured onto the campus during that summer program, life
changed. I’m pretty sure I heard angels sing the second I stepped
through those gates, those beautiful, necessary Spelman gates. Shouts to AJ and the the mythical rubber bullets.

Those angels never quite stopped singing for me. Spelman introduced
me to more impressive, intelligent, interesting, engaging, beautiful (as
a people), and challenging women than I’d ever encountered in life,
many of whom I have the grand pleasure of calling friends and family
today. They’re bad bad. The women I met at Spelman, both
through my time at Morehouse and through my life since graduating, have absolutely made me a better person, in nearly every way. That’s not to say that I haven’t made mistakes; Spelman is magic, but it ain’t a
miracle worker. But the type of women that gathered under the Spelman banner, at least in my own life, have been the type that I’ve always wanted to be around because I knew that my life was better that way.

And this isn’t to say that I haven’t had similar experiences with
women from other institutions, but as a collective, women from Spelman are exceptional, to the point where I’m genuinely happy and proud to meet a woman from Spelman. Every woman I know from Spelman isn’t perfect, nor should I expect that. It would be unreasonable. But my impression of women from Spelman through my experiences has led me to view the institution, its mission, its ability to execute its mission, and its students and graduates as being the embodiment of Black excellence.

My own daughter is a SpelHouse baby, and I can’t envision her going
anywhere else. Which is curious because I can see my sons at other
institutions than Morehouse, though it would be my sincerest desire for them to attend my alma mater, and stay in my dorm room, White Hall 126.

Any self-respecting churchgoer knows Easter Sunday is basically the
Beyoncé of Sundays. Ushers in formation, hats on hats on hats, and
Church Mothers wishing a nigga would sit in their pew; it’s a
big deal, and rightfully so. Jesus was dead, chilled for a second, said
hell nah, Xmen’d a stone, waved bye to his haters and rose again sans any CGI effects. Who does that? Well, besides Morgan Freeman, who at this moment is the true and living God.

Considering the aforementioned, coupled with Black people’s innate
ability to be extra as ish, it’s only right that we celebrate Jesus’
ultimate Whodini move with praise in the form of bedazzled, dry-heaving preachers and little girls shrouded in more ruffles than Prince’s closet.

So for all you believers, saved and unsaved, who will venture into
the House of the Lordt this coming Sunday morn, here are a few things to keep in mind during worship service. (Friendly reminder No. 1: The building fund is a pyramid scheme dipped in communion juice and loose change. Remember last Easter when you tithed an extra $10 to contribute to a new refrigerator for the Mother Ruth Jenkins Fellowship Hall? Well the fridge is still in layaway and Mother Ruth is actually a code name for the First Lady’s prayer cloth collection).

StringOnAStick says:
April 12, 2017 at 2:19 pm
I want, no need to think that the IC is doing exactly what it needs to do right now, and that we are finding out things like the Ukraine black ledger is real because they are ever so slowly turning up the heat on all the players; that one of course was aimed at Manafort. The reason no one has gotten an immunity deal is because the IC has such good evidence that they don’t need what Flynn and Page offered, they’ve already got it.

What is taking so long is there are just so damned many players that need to be rolled up. I can’t imagine the anger inside all of the IC at how a sworn enemy has gotten so much and so deep into our government, and I imagine they want to make sure they get every last string pulled and every traitor firmly in their noose. Between the internecine fighting in the administration and the individuals trying to remember just exactly what they said and when they said it since it is all on FBI tapes, I have to imagine the fear sweats are getting pretty stinky at this point. Good!

There are reasons why these special elections are so important.
1. Democrats need to field candidates in every race
2. The Candidates get practice running
3. We will close the margin of victory in traditional GOP districts
4. Possibility of catching lightening and getting a victory

3 & 4 are important because of this number.

23

There are 23 GOP Congressmen where Hillary won their district.
The ZEGK doesn’t have a cushion to where he can lose 23 votes.
Scaring these 23 people is more important than the Freedom Caucus.

Without them, there’s no Trumpcare. The Freedom Caucus to the face of the opposition, but these folks were scared of voting for something so odious.

Never forget, Trumpcare is nothing but a tax cut bill masquerading as a healthcare plan. If they passed Trumpcare, then:
1. they could hide their sociopathy
2. they could go after more tax cuts under Reconciliation, thus not needing any Democratic votes
3. It would put a huge gash into Medicare, which will enable the ZEGK to get that much closer to his dream of Medicare vouchers.

Everyday that passes is one in our favor. Running out the clock matters a lot now. There are hard deadlines that they have to meet. The GOP’s inherent laziness in not actually wanting to work can work in our favor. Everyday that passes in 2017, brings us closer to 2018 and elections…and nobody likes to pass anything in an election year.

Trump reverses course, vows to tackle health care ‘first’
04/12/17 10:14 AM
By Steve Benen
About three weeks ago, after the House Republicans’ health care bill collapsed in the face of intra-party opposition, Donald Trump delivered some brief remarks from the Oval Office, expressing his disappointment about the outcome, blaming Democrats, and looking ahead.

While the president said policymakers will “end up with a truly great health care bill in the future,” Trump added he’d shift his attention to a different issue. “We’ll probably be going right now for tax reform, which we could have done earlier, but this really would have worked out better if we could have had some Democrat [sic] support,” he said, adding, “So now we’re going to go for tax reform which I’ve always liked.”

Two days later, on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Trump’s budget director, Mick Mulvaney, sounded a similar note. “We’ve moved on to other things,” Mulvaney said. “The president has other things he wants to accomplish.”

Three weeks later, Trump has apparently no longer intends to move on.

During an exclusive interview on FOX Business, President Donald Trump said he wants to tackle health care before tax reform.

“I have to do health care first, I want to do it first to really do it right,” Trump told Maria Bartiromo.

The president’s phrasing was clumsy, but he seems to have some basic understanding of the broader dynamic. “[W]e’re going to have great health care, and all of that savings goes into the tax,” Trump told Fox Business. “If you don’t do that you can’t put any of the savings into the tax cuts and the tax reform.”

That’s more or less accurate. One of the reasons House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) prioritized health care over tax reform is that he saw the former as helping lay the groundwork for the latter. By crafting a far-right bill, Republicans could save billions, which in turn could be applied to tax cuts in a separate, conservative tax reform package.

NEVER EVER FORGET…

TRUMPCARE was nothing but a Tax Cut plan disguised as a healthcare bill.

That picture of the 2017 Passover Seder is just unbelievable, so disrespectful. Well, it is obvious no one cares about these types of events in this “administration”.

It appears that the grace and style and elegance of the Obama years is gone for the duration of Trump’s ridiculous presidency. Seriously, what should we expect from these buffoons? Elegance is not their thing.

Trump campaign advisor investigated as possible Russian agent
04/12/17 08:00 AM
By Steve Benen
As Donald Trump’s Russia scandal grew more serious late last year, the Republican’s team faced all kinds of questions, including whether anyone from the campaign was in communications with Russia ahead of Election Day. The answer was always the same: No.

In the face of reports that Carter Page, a Trump foreign policy adviser, may have spoken with Russian officials during the campaign, Sean Spicer told reporters during the transition period, “Carter Page is an individual whom the president-elect does not know.”

…………………….

The FBI obtained a secret court order last summer to monitor the communications of an adviser to presidential candidate Donald Trump, part of an investigation into possible links between Russia and the campaign, law enforcement and other U.S. officials said.

The FBI and the Justice Department obtained the warrant targeting Carter Page’s communications after convincing a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge that there was probable cause to believe Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power, in this case Russia, according to the officials.

This is the clearest evidence so far that the FBI had reason to believe during the 2016 presidential campaign that a Trump campaign adviser was in touch with Russian agents. Such contacts are now at the center of an investigation into whether the campaign coordinated with the Russian government to swing the election in Trump’s favor.

“A cabin that housed enslaved people starting in the 1853 was restored and installed in the National Museum of African-American History and Culture — and on Tuesday a woman who was born there saw her former home in a museum exhibit.

Isabell Meggett Lucas, 87, was amazed to see the two-room wood house where her family of 11 had lived on Edisto Island, South Carolina.

The cabin is on display in the slavery and freedom section of the museum, but Lucas she did not know growing up that slaves had lived there. To them, it was just home.”

GOP strategist: ‘The way things are headed, we would lose the House’
04/12/17 08:40 AM
By Steve Benen
Congressional elections are zero-sum affairs: candidates vie for a seat, the winner earns the opportunity to serve, and the loser gets nothing. To this extent, the fact that Republicans managed to hold onto Kansas’ 4th district in yesterday’s special election is precisely the outcome the GOP wanted to see.

And yet, it’s Democrats who appear to be smiling. The Kansas City Star reported overnight:

Republican Ron Estes will be the next congressman from the state of Kansas, but his victory Tuesday night did not come as easily as many expected in the deep-red state.

GOP strategists warned in recent days that Democrat James Thompson, a civil rights attorney, was in striking distance against Estes, Kansas state treasurer from Wichita, in the special election to replace Mike Pompeo.

Estes trailed Thompson early in the night, but began to pull ahead around 9 p.m. In the end, Estes prevailed with 53 percent to Thompson’s 45 percent.

……………………….

The Republican Party had to scramble furiously, in ways no one expected, to win by about 8 percentage points. The GOP push included intervention from Donald Trump and Mike Pence, both of whom recorded robo-calls for local voters; in-person campaigning from Ted Cruz; a fundraising push from Paul Ryan; and 11th-hour investments from the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Republicans prevailed, but the GOP candidate didn’t win so much as he survived. If Democrats can seriously compete in this Kansas district, they can seriously compete almost anywhere.

Steve Bannon might be losing some of his grip on power in the White House to Jared Kushner and “the generals,” but his white nationalist cause is gaining steam from his good buddy Attorney General Jeff Sessions. I pointed out yesterday how the AG’s plan to ramp up the war on drugs has no justification apart from a racist attempt to target people of color.

While visiting Nogales, Arizona on Tuesday, Sessions ramped up the racist rhetoric about immigrants in a speech he delivered during a tour of the Southern border.

But it is also here, along this border, that transnational gangs like MS-13 and international cartels flood our country with drugs and leave death and violence in their wake. And it is here that criminal aliens and the coyotes and the document-forgers seek to overthrow our system of lawful immigration.

Let’s stop here for a minute. When we talk about MS-13 and the cartels, what do we mean? We mean criminal organizations that turn cities and suburbs into warzones, that rape and kill innocent citizens and who profit by smuggling poison and other human beings across our borders. Depravity and violence are their calling cards, including brutal machete attacks and beheadings.

It is here, on this sliver of land, where we first take our stand against this filth.

The first thing I noticed is that for someone like Sessions, we have moved on from the disagreement over using “illegal immigrant/alien” instead of “undocumented immigrant.” He has now ramped things up by using the term “criminal aliens.” That is not simply a term reserved for the “cartels” he talked about. Sessions uses that nomenclature throughout the speech when referring to undocumented immigrants.

Poor and working-class whites have been getting more attention than resources lately — just as black folk have for generations.

The time couldn’t be better to push an equity agenda.

“My fellow chiefs and I are making equity a priority of our work,” said South Dakota Secretary of Education Melody Schopp in her address last month to a national convening of the CCSSO. The Council of Chief State School Officers is a membership organization comprised of the top education leaders of each state.

The think tank Aspen Institute and CCSSO published “Leading for Equity: Opportunities for State Education Chiefs,” a paper that outlines 10 commitments by state education officials to improve equity. And states have the ability to act. As school superintendents implement the complex new federal education law, the Every Student Succeeds Act, they have the freedom that ESSA provides to promote equity in their state.

But not saying the word “equity” is a pretty good sign that you’re not for it. Consequently, state leaders can’t rely on U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos — who seemingly has a hard time uttering the word — to support their equity agenda.

On the same day as the CCSSO meeting, DeVos gave two speeches (one of them to CCSSO) and the word “equity” did not feature in her prepared remarks for either of them.

I think it’s fair to say that the fundamental problem the congressional Republicans had when they were in the majority during the Obama presidency is that too many of their members could not be convinced that they lacked the power to impose their will on a Democratic president. Time and again, they took decisions predicated on the fallacy that they could get Obama to back down and give them everything they wanted. Try as he might, Speaker John Boehner could not keep the government’s doors open or pay our debts on time without running to the Democrats for support. Eventually, the need to do this repeatedly cost him his job.

Speaker Paul Ryan now has a Republican president to work with, but he’s already discovered that he can no more rely on his caucus to pass legislation than Boehner could, and he can rely on Republican senators even less. The problem is roughly the same, basically a strong streak of ideological lunacy precludes the Republicans from acting with enough unity to form a de facto majority.

I have to agree with Matt Yglesias that Paul Ryan has created a shambles because his grand strategic legislative plan for this year was built on the faulty premise that he could get his caucus to move as a bloc and that he could depend on the Republican-led Senate to approve what his chamber produced. These assumptions failed their first contact with reality when his Obamacare repeal/replace bill failed to even come to a vote.

On the other hand, I think Yglesias is probably too forgiving of Donald Trump. Anyone who observed the congressional Republicans during the Obama years should have been able to anticipate that it was a bad bet to build a presidential strategy around forcing everything through Congress with nothing but Republican votes.

For those who wonder why the election last night in Kansas was important, I bring you an excellent explanation from BJ:

Because the Dem lost by less? That doesn’t count for much.

efgoldman says:
April 12, 2017 at 8:33 am

in KANSAS, which elected Brownback twice, where the liberals are Republiklowns who tolerate public schools and think the courts should exist; by six points in a district that has gone 60+ for RWNJs for the last umpty elections; against a Democrat with no money, not helped by the state party (such as it is, and it isn’t much); against the state treasurer, who won statewide by some ridiculous margin; in a special election, which always has low turnout and usually favors Republiklowns.

Yes, it is a very big deal, and depending how GA-6 and Montana go next week. may mean a wave is coming.

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Even though 3Chics Politico is written and curated by three women: Ametia, Rikyrah, and SouthernGirl2, I must nominate this as one of the most engaging blogs I've found. Devoted to politics and culture, these three shine a light on contemporary life with humor and spirit.